1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toner used in a recording method such as electrophotography, electrostatic recording, magnetic recording or toner-jet recording, and to a method for producing the toner.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been a growing demand for high image quality of color images in image-forming apparatuses. In image-forming apparatuses such as digital full-color copiers and printers, an original image is first subjected to color separation with blue, green and red color filters. An electrostatic latent image corresponding to the original image is then formed on a photosensitive member, which is then developed using yellow, magenta, cyan and black color developers. Consequently, the tinting strength of the colorant present in each color of developer has a considerable effect on image quality.
More specifically, high image quality is required that approaches color reproduction in accordance with the Japan Color Certification System of the Japanese printing industry as well as Adobe RGB used in RGB workflow.
However, at present, further improvement of colorants is required in order to reproduce image quality equivalent to Japan Color or Adobe RGB.
In the case of cyan colorants in particular, copper phthalocyanine compounds that are widely used at present are unable to adequately expand color space, and it is therefore said to be essential to develop new coloring materials (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-122496).
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a cyan colorant has been disclosed that contains a phthalocyanine compound having a substituent on a central metal atom, and in the case of using this cyan colorant, an electrostatic charge image developing toner is obtained that has high lightness and favorable color tone (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-122496).
In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-176311 discloses that full-color images having high chroma and high lightfastness are obtained by using a toner that contains a colorant containing a compound in which Si phthalocyanine structures are linked by —O— or —O—Si(R)2—O—.